This sounds like multiple problems are occurring at once. I am confirming this report based on containing the required debugging information for the problem concerning the brightness keys blocking the keyboard and jumping from 0-100%. Please file a separate bug report about the other non-working hotkeys. Thank you.

But maybe this helps:
I also set the keymaps Andreas already described. After an X restart i´m able to use the brightness keys and the keyboard gets stuck.
But i can still switch to a console with the ALT+CTRL+F1-F6 keys. After switching back to X with CTRL+ALT+F7 i am able to use the keyboard again. If i use the brightness keys once more the brightness goes down to 0% or up to 100% without an release event.

same problem here.
i first through it may be an acpi problem, because when i add "acpi=off" in grub, the brightness worked

after some search i found out that the keys were not mapped, so i did a
setkeycodes e008 225
setkeycodes e009 224

in console (CTRL+ F1-F6) it work normaly
but in graphical mode it bugs with two problems

first : brightness go to 0% or 100% even if i release the key
second : the keyboard won't react any more... i needed to switch back in console mode (CTRL ALT F1) and to come back in X (ALT F7) to have a working keyboard again

funnyly when i press the up key just after setting the brightness, well it stop increasing or decreasing brightness, like the release code is given...

i killed gnome-power-manager and run it this way
gnome-power-manager --no-daemon --verbose
i pressed the decrease button ONCE and then the increase button ONCE (because
the brightness was at 0%)
then i switch to console and back in graphic mode (because i loose the
keyboard) and killed gnome-power-manager

I installed Hardy (8.04.1) using the Alternate installer and I had to use acpci=off as a boot option to install Ubuntu. I noticed that when I used this boot option the brightness keys such as the up and down arrow, but also the FN+F5 key worked as expected. Perhaps this info can help us further determine the issue and solve it? Feel free to contact me for more info if this is needed. I'm willing to test and check things.

It's a fault in how some of the Fn keys don't send the key release code, making the OS think that the key is being held down. I have submitted a patch to the kernel which fixes this issue, allowing the Fn keys (including brightness) to be used properly.

Until recently, the battery and WLAN keys weren't mapped to any xkeysym's, and the battery key was also disabled in gnome-power-manager. A recent update to xkeyboard-config and gnome-power-manager has rectified this, and these keys should work as long as there are no other issues with them

I think I saw a post on one of the HAL mailing lists showing that some keycodes had been added. I can't seem to find it in google now (will continue to have a look for it).

The battery key works on mine with gnome-power-manager, providing i setup the scancode (which HAL should take care of). My wireless doesn't seem to disable, though that's an issue I will look at later tonight.

The kernel team should probably take a look at this - once the release event is in place then there are a number of easy ways to assign the hotkeys. The hotkey-setup package is one option, but the HAL option is probably better.

I've got the scancodes for the brightness keys. For the other non-working keys (battery / LCD / WLAN), could you please run:

"tail -f /var/log/kern.log"

...then press these non-functioning keys and post any output. If they aren't being mapped to any keycodes, it would be good to know before I send the hal-info part of this report upstream. If they are mapped, then there is a problem elsewhere and you should open a separate bug report for those keys.

The patch on the kernel bugzilla fixes the key release problem, I know this as I wrote it. It fixes all of the key releases, allowing them to be mapped by HAL correctly. There was mention of it being included in a hotkey file (still can't find the page link)

As for the scancodes, there is an attachment on the kernel bugzilla that lists all of the codes that the Fn keys produce. This will be what the hal team are after for the mappings. The list can be found at http://bugzilla.kernel.org/attachment.cgi?id=19300

If I get a chance I will look into the HAL config to see if I can create a quick patch to fix it. It still remains an issue though about unpatched kernels having the correct scancodes, as the keys would repeat to infinity (not a good idea when turning wireless on/off etc)

Thanks for the info Stuart. All of those key mappings are already present in hal-info for other Samsung models. All that is needed is just another match rule added to 30-keymap-misc.fdi. Could someone with this laptop please run "lshal > lshal.log" and attach the log file.

I would love to test the kernels but I am not experienced in this and not at all confident about how to do it. If there were instructions on what to do then I would gladly volunteers since I am very much interested in this problem to be resolved.
thank you all for the hard work you are doing.

@Andy I just installed your kernel on my NC10 with EasyPeasy 1.0 (orig. kernel 2.6.27-8). At the first glance everything works fine except of one big problem: I don't have WLAN anymore (the atheros card is not found). Regarding the FN keys, Brightness up/down are working as expected but Wireless on/off and brightness on/off don't work (should they?).
I hope this helps. Thanks for your work.

The R60P quirk is already in the latest version of hal-info in jaunty and intrepid-proposed. The only missing quirk appears to be for the R70, from a duplicate of this one.

mlmss - forget my last message, your NC10 already has the necessary quirks. Could you switch to a console (CTRL+ALT+F1) and run "sudo showkey -k", press the keys that aren't working and tell me if you see a keycode for any of them (and what the code is).

@Chris unfortunately there are no keycodes for wireless on/off, LCD on/off and Monitor switch, however for brighness up/down there are also no keycodes although they are working now. For speaker on/off and Volume up/down there are keycodes so in general showkey -k was working.

@All has somebody a hint what I could do that the wireless card is working again? I've compared the modules and it seems that there is no ath5k module with this kernel.

@Cyril I followed your advice and added NC10 to the line you mentioned (it was not there before) but nothing changed. Still now working wireless on/off, LCD on/off and Monitor switch and still no keycodes with showkey -k.

@Chris and Cyril: I'm a bit confused, I'm not a linux expert and I thought I did it right but obviously not. Now I tried again showkey -k and showkey -s and in both cases I see keycodes, however in completely different styles. Here my results:
1. showkey -k
Brightness on/off keycode 148
Wireless on/off keycode 238
Monitor Switch keycode 431
Mail? (Fn+F7) keycode 149
Internet? (Fn+F8) keycode 202
Each time it shows one for press and one for release

Current hal-info in Jaunty sets the keymap for the NC10. The current {hardy,intrepid}-proposed packages do that as well, but I'll pull them (also) because of this kernel bug, which renders the hotkeys unusable.

I have just tested this on NC10 (with 2.6.28.7-20) and it seems to work.
I have just one comment: compared to the speed of adjusting sound (FN+left,right arrows) adjusting brightness (FN+up,down arrows) is about x2-x3 times slower.

Hello everyone,
would it be possible for someone to post a write-up of the fix (step-by-step instruction) for those like me who are not so experienced with linux.
What should be the steps fix the fn keys problem on NC10. Is it just upgrading to the '-proposed' or is there a need to modify the key map as it was written many posts ago.
I have honestly now lost track of what has to be done.
Your help for silly folks like me would be much appreciated.
Cheers

I was poking around with the Samsung Q45 and discovered a work-around by chance:

* press (amd release) the blue 'Fn' key *alone*
* depending on the focus that will open a menu somewhere on the desktop but do not worry and just ignore that for a moment
* now use the Fn-Up/Down key combinations to adjust the screen brightness as desired
* finally press the 'Esc' key twice

The volume keys work perfectly (including on-screen graphic), but the brightness keys have no effect at all. xev shows no events when these keys are pressed. I have updated hal-info but there has been no effect.

I have had a look at the possibility of a Hardy backport for this. It is not as simple a patch and therefore far from guarenteed to be accepted as an SRU. But if there is anyone still on Hardy affected by this and they could test this combination, then please could you test the kernels at the URL below and report back here. These kernels are available at the URL below:

I come from 'Bug 219116 Multiple hotkeys don't work with Samsung R70 T7300 Despina' because it has the status of being duplicate of this one. And I'm using Ubuntu 9.04 where some fn-keys are not working. And when I compare 9.04 to 8.10 I lost the fn+f9 (wlan on/off) what was in 8.10.

I'm using a new Samsung NB30 with Lucid and for me the Brightness Up/Down buttons (FN up/down) neither work, nor does the toggle Backlight button (Fn F5). The patch must have left the new kernel. I tried Fedora 13 Live CD and it has the same problem.

Martin, I just installed 10.10 Netbook Edition on my N145 and there still appear to be problems here. I had to put "*N*" in the "/lib/udev/rules.d/95-keyboard-force-release.rules" list to get the keyboard to release but the brightness function keys have no effect other than to temporarily.display the slider overlay on the desktop. Adam's grub file suggestions made no difference and I've installed the packages he cites in his guide. I'm running 2.6.35-25-generic and the Lucid kernel does not appear to be necessary (suspend and hibernate work with wifi).

This worked fine for me for a long time, but seems to have stopped working in oneiric: the brightness control works OK, but it goes all the way up or down for each press of Fn+Up or Fn+Down (actually, it's a little odder than that: Fn+Down always makes it go to minimum, then Fn+Up once makes it go up one step, then Fn+Up again makes it go to maximum).